Stoke 'control' pleases Hughes

Stoke City manager Mark Hughes hailed his side's control of the game as they drew 0-0 at Hull City on Saturday.

After a slow start, in which Asmir Begovic made two fine stops to deny Hull from breaking the deadlock, Stoke settled in to matters well at the KC Stadium.

In a much-improved second-half display, home goalkeeper Allan McGregor had to show sharp reflexes twice to deny Peter Crouch, while Ryan Shawcross also hit the bar with a header.

Hughes believed Stoke had done more than enough to win the game and praised the visitors for bouncing back from a 4-0 defeat to Everton in their last away game, crediting their 3-2 win over Chelsea last week for boosting morale in the camp.

He said: "I thought for the vast majority of the game we were in control of it, certainly in the last third of the game I thought we looked the team most likely to win.

"I thought in that period we were really positive and created a number of clear-cut chances that on another day we would have converted.

"In terms of restricting Hull to any period of real concerted pressure or momentum, I thought we did that really well as the away team, so I'm reasonably happy.

"Obviously last time on the road we didn't have the great performance at Everton.

"But today was important to build on the Chelsea result, that continuity of results and performance is important to us and we're showing a good resilience to our play."